New York’s Worst Doctors

The Post has been really upset about the implementation of Obamacare, using its rocky rollout as proof that government intervention in the healthcare system will never, ever, ever work. I mean, how could anything function long-term if it doesn’t even work perfectly right from its inception? The tabloid’s latest attempt to convince you that the healthcare overhaul is a flop is a piece about how New York doctors are resistant to the new system—but rather than make me skeptical of the Affordable Care Act, it makes me hate all of these whiny doctors.

I understand that medical school is superexpensive, and that doctors perform valuable, specialized services and need to be paid for those services. So, ok, I understand that some physicians might be resistant to these new systems because the kinks haven’t yet all been worked out. But also: if you’re getting into medicine, you should be doing it with a desire to help the sick—those in need of help!

Not to get corny, but the modern American version of the Hippocratic Oath states, “I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug… I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick… I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings.”

Now listen to this doctor:
“Obama Care wants to start right away, but who see all these new patients???? Not me.”

And this one:
“Can’t imagine any doctors would be willing to work for so little money? All doctors should boycott.”

And this one:
“Any doctor who accepts the exchange is just a bad businessman/woman. Pays terrible.”

Sure, doctors are in business, just like we all are, but when doctors start considering themselves businesspeople, we should know that our entire healthcare system is broken. They’re not businesspeople. They’re fucking doctors, and they should spend more time tending to the sick and less time being shitheads.